Even EnviroNuts Admit Kyoto Would Cost Jobs

But they counter that like when computers displaced typwriters new jobs were created and the same will be true of the loss of present manufacturing jobs would be be offset by new manufacturing jobs in the green sector. Probably right but what guarantee these jobs won't go offshore much like many of the IT jobs have done.

Baird bites back
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

Yesterday, I wrote about why no Canadian who cares about global warming should vote for Stephane Dion and the Liberals.

Today, let's examine why this also holds true for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.

Few can approach the hypocrisy of the Liberals these days as they yap at Harper for doing nothing to combat man-made global warming. The Liberals had more than 12 years in power to do something -- and did squat.

But they are matched every time Harper and Environment Minister John Baird fire back that the Liberals did nothing while they were the government. True, but beside the point.

The point is that had the Liberals ever reduced greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels, instead of allowing them to increase faster than even the United States, the Conservatives would have gone berserk.

Anxious to protect their Alberta political base -- the province leads Canada in emissions because of its energy-based economy, particularly the oil sands -- Harper and Co. never demanded the Liberals do more to combat global warming while in Opposition. In fact, they wanted them to do less, arguing the Grits should never have signed the Kyoto accord on climate change in the first place.

Not only did Harper, while Alliance leader, rail against Kyoto in a 2002 fund-raising letter as a "job-killing, economy-destroying ... socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations," he also dismissed the science behind "this so-called 'accord'" as "based on tentative and contradictory ... evidence about climate trends." He warned it would cripple the fossil fuel-based economies of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C., arguing (in capital letters, no less) "THERE ARE NO CANADIAN WINNERS UNDER THE KYOTO ACCORD." Clear enough for you?

In the 2004 election, Harper vowed to scrap the UN treaty in favour of "realistic pollution control measures." After winning last year's vote, Harper's first version of his Clean Air Act, which has now been completely rewritten in committee by the opposition parties, didn't even mention Kyoto.

Harper's so-called concern about global warming and the environment has precisely mirrored its recent rise in the polls, as it moved from being a very low priority for Canadians, to the top one.

Yesterday, Baird unleashed the Conservatives' latest bid to undermine Kyoto, a report endorsed by several independent economists, which argued to implement the treaty at this late date (next year) would soon send Canada into a severe recession costing 275,000 jobs, hike electricity bills by 50%, up the price of gasoline by 60% and double the cost of heating a home with natural gas.

The opposition called it fear-mongering, but after blasting them yesterday for passing an earlier motion that would theoretically require the Conservatives to implement Kyoto, Baird hilariously added, "please, however, don't take my criticism of Bill C-288 as a condemnation of Kyoto." He said the Tories remain committed to it ... short of actually doing anything it says. (I swear, you can't make this stuff up.)

What Baird and Harper were really doing was countering the apocalyptic, "climate porn" rhetoric of global warming fanatics (if we don't implement Kyoto, we're all gonna die) with some apocalyptic, "fiscal porn" rhetoric of their own (if we do implement Kyoto, we're all gonna go broke).

Anyway, with Green Party Leader Elizabeth May now endorsing Dion over Harper on global warming (yeah, like that's a choice!) you should probably vote for the NDP or, in Quebec, the Bloc, if you really do care about climate change. Sorry.